Amadou Diallo’s mother says she wants to meet the NYPD cop who killed her son, praises him for saving lives

There was a time when Kadiatou Diallo was unable to see past her grief — bewildered by how four cops could have seen a threat in her gentle son, gunning him down in a hail of 41 bullets.

Those days are past her.

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Upon learning that Sgt. Kenneth Boss — one of the cops who killed her son in the Feb. 4, 1999, shooting — was being honored Thursday for saving two lives, she said the news actually lifted her spirits and said she hoped to meet him one day in the future.

"I don't know how or when, but I think it will come," she told the Daily News. "I'm at peace. He is out there doing something as a police officer. This is good."

Boss, who was acquitted at trial after firing five shots at Diallo, is the only one of the four Bronx cops who remains with the NYPD.

Kadiatou Diallo, mother of Amadou, says she's now at peace. (Michael Schwartz/for New York Daily News)

Police Officer Sean Carroll — who shouted in the horrible mistake that the 23-year-old Guinean immigrant had a gun, sparking the fusillade — retired in 2005. Officers Richard Murphy and Edward McMellon joined the FDNY.

Police traced at least three bullets that hit Diallo to guns fired by Boss, McMellon and Carroll.

Assigned to the NYPD Aviation Unit, Boss was named a "Sergeant of the Year" by his union, the Sergeants Benevolent Association, for rappelling from a helicopter and rescuing a couple of boaters in May who found themselves stranded overnight on a small island in Jamaica Bay in Brooklyn.

He was one of eight NYPD sergeants honored Thursday during the annual luncheon at Giando on the Water in Williamsburg.

Boss declined to speak to reporters.

Sergeants union President Ed Mullins called Kadiatou Diallo's words "kind," and said Boss "has been put under a spotlight for many, many years."

"Unlike every other American, he was tried and acquitted, and in this country, when that happens you are set to go free," Mullins said. "He's never really been set to go free.

"He will be judged one day by a higher authority and not by us," the union head added. "We would rather look ahead than behind."

Diallo — who has become a galvanizing force for families who have suffered similar fates at the hands of cops and is preparing a Sept. 29 memorial celebrating what would have been her doomed son's 41st birthday — said she has not given up the fight for justice and reform.

"The first thing I would do is talk to him about who Amadou was," she said. "If he ever met him, he would have known there was no way Amadou could ever harm him or anyone else."

Diallo added, "For the rest of his life, whatever else (Boss) does, he'll be remembered as one of the officers involved with Amadou. I pray for healing. I wish for him to move on in a constructive way, to do good, and that is what he is doing."